New Mexico has a stormy gambling background. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed by the House in 1989, it seemed like New Mexico would be one of the states to get on the American Indian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a working group in 1990 to discuss an accord with New Mexico Amerindian bands. When the working group arrived at an agreement with 2 important local tribes a year later, Governor King refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took over in Nineteen Ninety Five, it appeared that Amerindian gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when Governor Gary Johnson signed the accord with the Amerindian tribes, anti-wagering forces were able to hold the deal up in courts. A New Mexico court ruled that the Governor had overstepped his bounds in signing a deal, thus costing the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It took the Compact Negotiation Act, signed by the New Mexico government, to get the process moving on a full accord between the State of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, including American Indian casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. In that year, New Mexico not for profit game providers acquired just $3,048 in revenues. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and passed one million dollars in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have grown steadily since that time. 2005 witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 grossed by the owners.
Bingo is certainly favored in New Mexico. All sorts of owners try for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting around gambling as an important factor like they did back in the 90’s. That’s probably wishful thinking.
